


Annabeth takes a hike

by decypress



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-01-27 21:11:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21398710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decypress/pseuds/decypress
Summary: Annabeth, a paladin-in-training from Turnip Town, gets caught up in an unexpected sidequest while exploring the mountains.
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this was honestly supposed to only be two pages of description practise and span way way out of control lmao

The leaves rustled, shrouding the mountainside in green. The path was narrow and worn, dirt against a backdrop of dirt. To the right, the cliffs rose, jagged and blocky. To the left, the ground dropped away, replaced by a tangle of branches and twigs rising from the crags below. The air was cold, and the breeze carried the crisp aroma of the mountain’s rugged flora. A hawk’s cry echoed across the rocks.

Annabeth had been walking for almost nine hours, weighted down by her backpack and armour. She had stopped once, in the foothills, to eat the day’s lunch ration (one turnip). She picked her way forwards, her eyes always on the path ahead, using her glaive as a walking-staff. A squirrel darted up into the trees as she passed, startled by the clinking of her armour, and watched her continue on her way.

She pulled a cloth from one of her many skirt pockets and wiped her brow, breathing deeply in the thin mountain air. Her hands were itchy under her polished gauntlets, and her legs were on fire after such a long trek. Her stomach growled. She sighed, and kept walking. She could snack, she told herself, once she’d gotten over Limespire, and into the valley beyond. Earlier that day, she’d promised herself a biscuit once she got out of the foothills. It hadn’t happened. Greed was a sin, after all.

The path climbed higher, the trees thinning, to be replaced by the patchy, brown-purple stubble of plants that were stubborn enough to live this high up. With the cover of the trees gone, the view was expansive, and threatened to take what remained of Annabeth’s breath. A rolling sea of mountains stretched away to the northwest, the valleys enshrouded by mist and trees, whilst the peaks were lightly frosted with snow. Far to the south, they gave way to the rolling green plains of the Anolamine plateau, where Annabeth had set out a week ago on a blessedly full stomach. On the eastern horizon, almost indistinguishable against the sky, the sea glittered in the late afternoon sun.

Annabeth took a moment to gaze across the vista as she walked and appreciate the beauty of the natural world. There was a spiritual element to moments like these – although the moon may not be in the heavens, she felt a connection to the Goddess through the beauty and splendour of all things; an appreciation of the almost poetic interconnectedness of – her stomach growled again, quite insistently – of the natural world, where wolf, and bird and butterfly, could – wait, wait, she knew where she was going with this – _grumble_ – wait -

She groaned and held her stomach as hunger pangs shot through it. Abgenation was all very holy, but she was treating her calories the way timber companies treat the rainforest: too much burning. She touched her holy amulet, whispered a psalm of contrition, and stopped next to a fallen log. She sat. Taking off her gauntlets, she undid the clasps on her backpack and flipped it open.

Her pack rattled as she rooted through it. It was full of trinkets, odds and ends – her alms box, containing a pair of copper coins; her coin purse, empty; a small pan; a set of cutlery; her diary and a pencil, carefully sharpened with her knife. There was also her water bottle, a sack of raw turnips, bruised; half a squashed loaf of bread, wrapped in paper; and a small packet of biscuits, unopened. In the very bottom of the sack, her two spare dresses lay, wrapped tightly into bundles.

She pulled out the loaf of bread and unwrapped it, taking her knife from its sheath. She inspected the blade carefully, for signs of tarnish or dirt, and then carefully cut off a chunk. Holding it in her mouth, she wiped the crumbs off the blade and re-sheathed it, before wrapping the loaf back up and stowing it away in her bag once more. This was indeed the grand, exciting life of a Lunar Paladin.

She ate slowly. The clouds rolled by around her, and the sunlight began to turn gold against the snowcaps. She had been more tired than she’d thought. Far below, the forests were already wreathed in the deep blue-green of night. There was no sign of civilisation in sight. To the east, the first stars were beginning to sparkle in the indigo sky above the sea. To the west, the clouds shone red, backlit by the sunset. The lullaby of cricket-song rose from the valley.

All of a sudden, the breathy sound of a flute rang out over the mountain. Annabeth startled awake, looking around herself quickly, and grabbed her glaive. She shot to her feet and span left and right, pointing her blade down the dirt track both ways. The song continued to wash down the mountain like a brook.

Annabeth cautiously lifted her glaive onto its end and looked up, at the summit. A thin column of smoke was there now, rising from somewhere out of sight. The wilderness was apparently less untouched than it had initially seemed.

She gave short, guilty sigh. The Goddess was going to be very disappointed in her. Sloth was a sin, after all. And, with the gathering dusk, she was left with no choice but to intrude on the mountain-dwellers’ hospitality – and that was just impolite! Maybe she could sleep out here on the log? No, the air was already beginning to chill. She was never going to pass her trials and become a real paladin at this rate. And it would be hard to sleep without asking this mystery flutist to turn the volume down a notch or two, anyway.

She gathered up her things, stowing her gauntlets away into her backpack and swinging it up over her shoulders. She gripped her glaive with both hands and stepped off the path, heading up between the rocks towards the summit. The hill was steep and jagged, and the wind threatened to lift her from the face of the mountain as it whistled by. She grit her teeth and kept climbing, digging the end of her glaive into the dirt with each difficult step. After several minutes and a couple of slips, she reached the crest, and looked over.

Due to some long-forgotten volcanic activity, the peak was in fact a deep, bowl-like crater. Within it, a tiny patch of nature had flourished, hidden away from the blasting winds. A scattering of birch trees lined the slopes down to the center, where a lush grove of flowering bushes surrounded a single spotted mushroom, almost the size of Annabeth herself. Small birds hopped to and fro in the grass, and butterflies fluttered aimlessly between the trees. As she picked her way down into the crater, the air grew sweet with the scent of flowers and honey.

She reached the bottom of the slope and breathed deeply, enjoying the stillness of the air. She reached out and placed her free hand against the bark of a tree. That such scenes of beauty were hidden away in the quiet places of the world – who could have known?

The smoke she’d seen from below was rising from a small campfire, built in a stone-lined pit that had been dug in front of the giant mushroom. The flames were clearly magical, flickering in pink and purple. As Annabeth drew closer, she noticed there was no wood to burn – the fire was arising from a mound of flowers, which despite the licking flames lay pristine against the gravel.

“Who’s this?” came a voice, its tone a mix of curiosity and mischief. “Whatcha doing out this far, blondie?”

Annabeth looked around, her eyes narrow. She kept her grip on her glaive tight, just in case.

“I asked a question, blondie!” This time, the voice was accompanied by a light blow to the back of the head – a plum, thrown from one of the trees. Annabeth turned, and scanned the treetops.

“My name’s Annabeth,” she called out warily. “I’m travelling through these mountains as training.”

The voice giggled. “Training? What kind of training?”

Annabeth noticed a movement in one of the trees she’d passed by on the way down. She peered closer at the branches, trying to make out the source. “I’m practising to become a paladin,” she replied, smiling politely. “I don’t think I heard your name?”  
  
“That’s because I never said it!”

Annabeth blinked. The monastery’s etiquette lessons had not prepared her for this eventuality.  
  
“Well… can you say it? Please?”

“Yep!”

There was a pause. As Annabeth moved closer to the tree, she could pick out a stifled fit of giggling from the leaves above.

“Excuse me?” she asked again.

“Yep, I can!” struggled the voice, between cackles. “I am able to say my name!”  
  
“Well, could you please do so?” Annabeth pleaded. She was feeling very attacked.

“Yes! I just said I could!” the voice hiccuped, before dissolving into peals of laughter once more.

Annabeth grit her teeth and kicked the trunk. The tree shook, the laughter was cut off by a yelp, and a tiny green figure dropped out of the branches with a rustle. It spread a pair of iridescent wings and pulled out of the fall at the last moment, rising back up in an arc to hang in the air at Annabeth’s eye level. wore a dress woven of autumn leaves decorated with flower petals, and carried a tiny flute, carved from a white twig. From crown to toe, it couldn’t have measured more than a foot.

“A pixie!” Annabeth cried, her eyes wide.

The pixie adjusted her hair and scoffed. “Who were you expecting?”

Annabeth took a step back and bowed. “I – I don’t know. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The pixie watched Annabeth bow blankly, and then slowly broke into a smile. “You too. You wanted to know my name?”  
  
“That’s right,” Annabeth said. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m Twirl,” the pixie said proudly, her chest puffed out like a bird. “And this here’s my mountain.”

“It’s a lovely mountain,” Annabeth said, following Twirl as she began to flutter back to the mushroom in the middle of the crater. As she moved, she realised that a following of wrens had built up around her. “Very cosy hideaway up here.”

Twirl fluttered to the ground and alighted on a stone next to the fire. She lay down atop it and gestured to the grass beside her. Annabeth lowered herself to the floor, laying down her glaive and shrugging off her backpack. She sat cross-legged, then lifted herself up again, adjusting her skirts for comfort before dropping back down.

“So you’re training to be a paladin?” Twirl asked, her chin resting on her hands. “That means you have to be all devoted to some kinda god, right?”

Annabeth nodded, and fished her lunar amulet out from the neck of her chestplate. “The Lunar Goddess,” she explained. “My Holy Mother.” The wrens were now sat in a circle around her, looking up at her with attentive eyes.

“Sounds like a buncha effort to me,” Twirl said shortly (both figuratively and literally).

“You wouldn’t be the first to say that,” Annabeth sighed. She turned the amulet over in her hand, feeling the soothing coolness of the metal against her skin. “But it’s my decision.”

“Hey, I wasn’t saying it was a bad idea!” Twirl rolled onto her back and looked, upside-down, at Annabeth. “What kinda stuff do you have to do?”

Annabeth reached out and patted a wren on the head with a fingertip. “Good deeds, I guess. I’ve been training at the Glass Lake Monastery until now. We learnt etiquette, philosophy… combat skills, but those weren’t my favourite.”

“What was your favourite?” Twirl asked, her eyes wide.

Annabeth shrugged, and then fell backwards onto her hands as a group of wrens hopped up into her lap. She smiled in surprise, then looked up at Twirl. “I enjoyed the lessons on translating from the Celestial language. Actually - ”

She carefully shuffled the wrens from her lap, and delved into one of her skirt pockets, withdrawing a crudely-bound leather book. On the front, unevenly embossed, was the title: PRAYERS OF THE LUNAR MONTH – TRANSLATED FROM CELESTIAL BY ANNABETH CHAPEL. She held the book up to Twirl. “I did this!”

Twirl gasped. “You translated an entire book? On your own?”

Annabeth lowered her eyes deferentially, and said “It’s not that special.” Pride was a sin, after all.

“It’s amazing!”

Twirl lifted herself off the rock with her wings, and fluttered over to Annabeth as she opened up the book. The pages were dense with carefully handwritten blocks of text, in a painstakingly-drawn serifed style, using an old-fashioned quill pen and everything. Here and there the ink was blotchy or smeared, but the writing was overall quite legible. Annabeth had slaved over this in her dormitory room for almost a year getting the translations _just _right.

“Than-”

“Amazing that you have such patience for random busywork, I mean,” Twirl grinned mischievously.

Annabeth snapped the book closed, sending the wrens scattering off her lap in fright. “It was not _busywork_,” she snarled, glaring daggers at the pixie.

Twirl fluttered up to the top of the mushroom, her smile intact but her eyes wary. “Hey-hey, chill out.” She held up her palms. “It was just a friendly jab, alright? This is why I live out here away from you bigfolk – you’re all so pent-up.”

Annabeth sighed and pocketed her book. “I’m sorry. That was unbecoming of me.”

“No worries,” Twirl said, lowering herself out of the air to sit atop the mushroom. She span her flute in spirals between her fingers, with the practised dexterity of someone who doesn’t often have anything better to do. “I should have known – I’ve never met a paladin who could take a joke.”

Raising a finger, Annabeth opened her mouth to refute the point – but swallowed and lowered it after noticing Twirl’s anarchic grin. “Ha ha ha,” she offered instead. “That’s us paladins.”

“Well, it’s a start,” Twirl sniggered. “I’ll get a real laugh out of you yet.”

The two of them sat in the grove and talked as the stars winked into life above them. The wrens reconvened into a circle around the campfire, and were happy to get some crumbled pieces of biscuit from Annabeth’s backpack. The tops of the trees rustled in the breeze outside the crater, and a smattering of fireflies took to the air and danced as Twirl played her flute for the visitor.

The music of the pixies was unlike anything Annabeth had heard before. In the chapel back at Turnip Town, they’d mostly had simple choral hymns, and on Sundays, they were graced by Granny Cheryl’s lurching, off-beat organ accompaniments. Then, in the monastery, she’d been introduced to a wider range of music from her classmates: Pop stars like Lollie, The Dervishes, and Ork Gurl; dance beats programmed into automated magical engines; and most distressingly of all, the ‘Rock’ and ‘Metal’ sounds made by dwarven miners, which made light of evil and invoked dark powers if you played the discs backwards. Or so she’d heard.

Twirl’s flute music, though, was intricate, bright and colourful. As Annabeth laid out her blanket, the melody danced through the crater, embodying the whimsy of pixiekind as it intricately raced up and down the scale. Annabeth unbuckled and removed her chestplate and greaves, leaving her in just her simple brown dress. She stretched in relief, and collapsed back onto her blanket, looking up at the stars and listening to the music with her hands beneath her head.

Twirl reached the end of her song with a flourish, and lowered her flute. “So, where are you off to?”

Annabeth gestured vaguely at the heavens. “Nowhere in particular.”

“You’re wandering alone in the mountains without even a destination?”

“Well, I heard there was a village a few valleys over. I was gonna just… find them and see if they needed anything doing.”

Twirl puffed her cheeks and blew in disbelief. “You were heading all the way out to Lonehearth to _see if they needed anything doing?_”

Annabeth shrugged. “Paladin training. I have to do good deeds, and come back with a written commendation for each.”

Twirl fluttered down from the mushroom and took a seat on Annabeth’s backpack. “What have you done so far?”

Annabeth counted off on her fingers. “I helped Yellowfield bring in their harvest, I escorted a wagon of mead from the brewery down to Clinkston, washed some windows and sheared some sheep while I was there -”

“How long have you been doing all this?”

“I set off from the monastery about 40 days ago, give or take.”

“And _all _the paladin trainees have to do this?” Twirl’s eyes were wide.

“Absolutely,” Annabeth said. “It’s what we’re here for, after all.”

There was a pause. Twirl looked around the crater awkwardly, and said, “You know all the other paladins are just making up their commendation letters, right?”

Annabeth sat bolt upright. “Never! Why – They would never! How could you know?”

Twirl shrugged. “Seems like the smart move to me.”

Annabeth shook her head, tugging at the chain of her amulet. “Impossible.” She looked around at the moon, then turned away and muttered, “But it would explain why all the previous graduates have commendations for slaying dragons and freeing villages from mad sorcerers.”

Flying around into her eyeline, Twirl gave Annabeth a sympathetic nod. “I guess there’s not much actual monster-slaying to do for an undergraduate. It’s all taken by the big flashy heroes.”

Annabeth shook her head. “Oh, there’s plenty of monster-slaying jobs too. I took out a wyvern the other week.”

Twirl dropped from the air in shock. “Why didn’t you mention that before the window-washing?!”

“The washing happened first,” Annabeth explained, bemused.

“Well – it’s just – you’re out here helping people, right?”

Annabeth nodded again. She had just spent a minute explaining it all.

Twirl shot back up into the air. “Alright, okay – So there’s this mountain – Actually, I’ll just show you-”

She sped away, heading for the western rim of the crater. Annabeth hoisted herself to her feet and followed, the grass tickling her feet now that she was out of her greaves. She pulled herself up the incline to join Twirl looking out over the mountain range. The view had changed since the sun set, shrouding the landscape in darkness. The endless peaks merged into a single sawblade horizon, standing black against the purple nebulae and scattered stars.

“Over here, over here,” Twirl said, flying out over the edge and directing Annabeth’s gaze as best she could towards one of the tallest nearby mountains, one that in the daylight was white with snow. “You see this one? The tall one.”

Annabeth nodded. “What’s this all about?”

“Do you see the tower?”

Annabeth peered closer. After a few moments, she spotted it – a jagged rectangular shape jutting from the side of the mountain a ways up. “I see it.”

“There’s something real bad going on over there,” Twirl said darkly, returning to Annabeth’s side and alighting on the rim of the crater. “I used to visit that mountain all the time to harvest snow for fruit sorbets – Now I can’t get near it without my head splitting."

Annabeth looked back over at the mountain. She couldn’t see anything from this far out – not with the naked eye, that is. With the aid of her goddess, she could see beyond her usual perception. She let her eyes blur and her mind wander, and tried to see things as they really were.

Everything snapped back into focus, lit by a pale Moonlight. She glanced down at Twirl, who sparkled with a strange green aura. She checked her own hand. Golden as normal – thank goodness. She looked up, over the range, all revealed under the guiding light of the Moon. The mountain Twirl had indicated was enwreathed in dark fog, swirling around. The tower was barely visible, as the clouds were thickest there, seeming to almost glow from within with a malicious energy.

She blinked, and the world returned to normal. She rubbed her eyes and said, “You’re right. Want me to take care of it?”

Twirl nodded vigorously. “Hell yes, I do!”

Annabeth winced. “_Heck_ yes, please.” Twirl rolled her eyes.

“I know how to get around these mountains quickly,” the pixie went on. “I can take you to the mountain, and once we’re done there, I can get you over to Lonehearth within the day.”

Annabeth raised her eyebrows. “I can’t fly.”

Twirl glanced over and scoffed. “I know that! What, you think I’m stupid? Trust me. You want a good-looking commendation, right?”

Annabeth looked back up at the building. “That’s not important. What’s important is figuring out what’s wrong, and putting it right.” She stood, and began to pick her way back down the crater, to her blanket. “We leave for the mountain first thing tomorrow.” Twirl leapt up into the air to follow her, with a groan of disbelief.

“Do-gooders.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Travelling through the valley on their way to the cursed tower, Annabeth and Twirl make an unexpected meeting.

The valley was shrouded in dense fog. The pale light of the sunrise suffused the air, turning the silver sheets of mist to gold as the air began to warm. The underbrush of the forest rustled and cracked as Annabeth picked her way through, scattering droplets of dew across the earth as she pushed branches and twigs aside. Her cheeks were red behind the wispy clouds of her breath, her lungs aching in the fading chill. The last refrains of the morning chorus sang through the fog.

Twirl rode atop Annabeth’s backpack, sitting on the rolled-up blanket strapped to it. She sleepily directed her newfound steed through the forest, pointing out the hidden crevices and tangled hollows that provided easy passage through the wilderness for one who knew to look for them.

“Why don’t you just fly? Wouldn’t it be faster?”

Twirl scoffed. “Why don’t you just sprint the whole way? Wouldn’t it be faster?”

“There’s no need to get snippy about it,” Annabeth scowled, lifting a bough as she passed beneath. Moisture dripped from the mossy branch onto Twirl’s wings, and she shivered in disgust, flapping them dry. Today, she’d accessorised with a scarf woven of flower petals. It was beautiful, but did a terrible job at actually keeping her warm. Classic vanity, Annabeth reflected, then chided herself for thinking badly of others.

They passed through a narrow crevasse lined with hanging ivy. The rock walls were porous and gritty, and the ground where they met was muddy and uneven. Annabeth sighed, and mentally added a full armour polishing and washing run to her itinerary. She only had the three dresses, she couldn’t afford to keep trampling them through the dirt like this.

The crevasse opened out to a lush basin at the valley’s nadir. The mist was thickest here, and the grass reached up to Annabeth’s waist. In the center of the basin, a clear stream flowed across rocks, shallow enough to ford, but deep enough that Annabeth had to hitch up her skirt and order Twirl to look away. Lust was a sin, after all. Once across, they continued into a thicket of trees, where the mist left Twirl uncertain of their path.

“I’m pretty sure… it was just over here,” the pixie yawned. Annabeth picked her way through the underbrush at her direction, but privately, she was having doubts.

They crossed between two jagged rock towers and into another, steep crevice. Annabeth strapped her glaive to the side of her pack and began to climb with hands and feet, lifting herself up through the damp crags rock by rock. Twirl lifted off from her backpack and directed her as best she could. After several minutes’ climb, Annabeth crawled up onto flatter ground and huffed for breath on hands and knees. Twirl returned to her perch on the backpack. “Good job!”

Annabeth wobbled back to her feet, regaining her breath, and took up her glaive once more, trekking resolutely onwards. The mist began to thin as they climbed, the faint shapes of trees becoming visible out away from the hillside. Up here, the air was blustery, and Annabeth’s throat ached from cold. A hummingbird flitted past across the path ahead, chirping brightly.

After forging up a series of steep, grassy knolls, they were far enough out of the mist to see the blue sky again. The fog rolled away beneath them, the peaks of the mountain range rising from it like a snow-capped archipelago. It was a sight wholly unfamiliar and beautiful to Annabeth, who had grown up in an area of farmland flat enough for a game of pool.

“I think we’ve gone the wrong way.”

Annabeth stopped, leaning heavily on her glaive. “Pardon?”

“It was misty!” cried Twirl, peering into the depths of grey below. “I think we should have turned left at… some point.”

Almost knocking Twirl from the top of her backpack, Annabeth threw her head back and sighed. “Does this mean I have to go all the way back down that hecking cliff again?”

Twirl grinned. “That wasn’t a cliff! It was nowhere near vertical.”

“It was a trial,” Annabeth groaned. “I think I did something to my elbow on the way up.”

“Well, you can undo it on the way back down. That’s how it works, right?”

“No.” Annabeth shook her head. “No, no, no.”

“You really aren’t good at humour, are you?”

“Not what I meant. We’re not going back down.” Annabeth pointed up the cliff, through the trees and past the rocks. Far above, the ruined tower peeked down at them over the ridge. “We’re on the mountain. If we just keep going up, we’ll find it eventually.”

She set off. Twirl clung to the blanket roll.

As they rose, they passed through a vale of lavender, then up and into a narrow cavern, lit softly by phosphorescent mushrooms. The walls were rocky, much rougher than the wind-smoothed crags above, and the air was murky and still. Water dripped through cracks above into a sediment-clouded pool, from which it trickled down through subterranean cracks and channels to the valley. The gentle plip-plop was the only sound besides Annabeth’s footsteps.

At the side of the tunnel, they discovered a narrow passage disappearing away into darkness, lined with spiderwebs bigger than either of them had ever seen. By the mouth of the passageway, a single web hung, spun crudely into the words “FREE SWEETS!” and an arrow pointing to the ominous darkness. They agreed not to enter. Gluttony was a sin, after all.

As they continued up through the winding cave, the blade of Annabeth’s glaive glinting blue under the light of the mushrooms, Annabeth began to taste the bitter tang of dark magic at the back of her mouth. It was like the aftertaste of medicine, a bitter, aromatic sensation that couldn’t be washed away by water. The source was still far off, but the sensation was unmistakable. She gripped her glaive tightly and kept moving, following whichever paths led her upwards.

A glimmer of sunlight and a breeze of fresh air marked the end of the tunnels. Annabeth picked up the pace, anxious to escape the mystery confectioner, but skidded to a halt as the floor dropped out ahead of her. The tunnel had collapsed into some lower hollow, interrupting the path to the sunlight with a jagged pit. The walls were lacking in handholds, and her armour and backpack would probably be weighty enough to break them off anyway.

“Well, this is a problem,” she observed.

“Tell me about it,” came a voice from the pit. Twirl jumped. “Who’s there?!”

The voice was deep and gravelly, much like the pit it emerged from. It spoke with a polite wryness, “The name’s Rockwell. Don’t often get many visitors out here.”

Annabeth cautiously approached the edge of the pit, her movement sending a few pebbles skittering down. She peered over into the darkness.

It wasn’t as deep as she had initially feared: Around twelve, thirteen feet, depending on which part of the uneven base you measured from. That was still enough to trap someone on their own, though, as the owner of this voice had clearly discovered. It was a large figure, stocky and angular – carved from stone. Their rocky arms were about as big around as Annabeth’s entire torso, and their upturned face was wide and flat, with a heavy brow and square nose, either side of which their eyes glowed with the purple fire of magic.

It was a Galeb Duhr, an undying golem that magicians would summon for the purposes of manual labour. Annabeth had seen a couple back at the monastery – they were summoned by Professor Rein of the arcane studies department for the purpose of cleaning and maintaining the premises. They had been unerringly polite and unfailingly hard workers, never needing to eat or sleep, and never questioning their work. Annabeth had looked up to them.

“Hello there,” she said, waving at Rockwell. Rockwell returned the gesture.

Twirl fluttered in the air above the pit. “What happened? How did you get down there?”

Since it was carved from stone, Rockwell’s face couldn’t change. Nevertheless, the pinprick pupils flickered upwards in a plausible simulation of an eye roll. “Fell in.”

“How long have you been there?” the pixie asked, swooping down to the pit and looking around. There was a short stream of water running through, passing in and out through cracks in the walls – possibly the cause of the weakness that had caused the collapse.

Rockwell shrugged. “A while. Maybe a century or so.”

Annabeth balked. “An entire century? Have you not tried to get out?”

“Sure,” the Duhr said. “But I’m too heavy. Can’t climb out. Couldn’t barely manage climbing the mountain as it was.”

Twirl looked around the claustrophobic pit, the walls rising all around, the floor too uneven to stand anywhere comfortably, let alone sit or lie. “So you’re just going to stay here forever?”

“Of course not,” Rockwell replied. “The water’ll cut a path out sooner or later. I can wait.”

They all looked at the trickling stream. It could have been dammed with a well-placed potato.

“We’re going to get you out of there,” Annabeth said firmly. “Grab a hold.”

She lowered the base end of her glaive into the pit. Rockwell sighed, and took hold of it in one hand. Annabeth took a grip of the crossguard, dug in her heels, and hauled. Neither the glaive nor the golem budged an inch.

“You see what I mean? Too heavy. Really, it’s fine.”

Annabeth grit her teeth and threw her weight into the task. Sweat beading on her forehead, she gave one massive tug, as hard as she could, and the already-cracked stone around the edge of the pit gave way under the force.

She tumbled down into the pit with a squeal, accompanied by a clattering of rock fragments, and landed with a crash beside Rockwell’s feet. Twirl cackled out loud at the fall. Rockwell simply stayed stood in the exact same position, holding up the glaive, and sighed again as she groaned.

She hoisted herself up onto her elbows, and rubbed the fresh bruises on her thigh. “_Darn,_” she hissed, drawing her hand in a crescent motion over her chest, and began to struggle to her feet.

“That was an impressive feat of strength, if nothing else,” Twirl snorted. Rockwell offered the glaive back, and commented, “Agreed. This ain’t a chalk mine.”

Annabeth took her weapon, and looked up out of the pit, her free hand still against her leg. “Well, this is my punishment for haste. Goddess forgive me.”

Twirl shrugged. “I doubt the moonlight can reach down here. You could do what you like.”

“I’d rather not,” Annabeth replied with a shiver. She stepped carefully across the trickling stream to the other side of the pit, and tapped at the rocks, feeling for handholds and crags. It was no use – this _definitely_ counted as a cliff, and the monastery had never covered rock climbing. She stepped back, and wobbled, almost tripping over a piece of debris from her fall. Rockwell caught her by the shoulder and steadied her.

“Thank you,” she said, looking up at the Galeb Duhr. “Do you have any idea how we can get out?”

“Annabeth, he’s been here for a hundred years,” Twirl cut in. “If there was a way, he would have -”

“I’ll just give you a boost out,” he said blithely. “Did it for another climber just a few weeks back.”

Twirl span to look at Rockwell, and then to Annabeth, and then back. “Another climber?”

Rockwell nodded. “Sure. Place has been busy lately.” Outside the cave, the desolate wind rustled the treetops.

Annabeth licked her teeth, the taste of dark magic sticking between them like plaque. “Who was it? Someone wizardly?”

“How did you know?” Rockwell asked, his eyes blinking off and on. “It was some kid from the north, I think. Carried a staff and a spellbook, wore a black robe. Are you looking for him?”

Twirl attempted to stomp her foot, but since she was flying, only succeeded in throwing herself off-balance and whirling down a few feet before recovering. She threw her arms up and cried, “He cursed my sorbet snow mountain! Let’s get that -”

She launched into a foul-mouthed tirade against the wizard, quite impressively explosive for someone less than ten inches tall. Annabeth cringed and covered her ears in the face of such extensive invectives. Rockwell chuckled.

Twirl paused for breath, landing on her knees atop Annabeth’s head, and their golem acquaintance took the moment to interject. “Did you say the mountain was cursed?”

Panting, Twirl replied, “Yeah. Can you not feel it? It’s like my wings are tarred.”

Rockwell shook his head. “My old master never thought to give me such perception.”

Twirl frowned at Rockwell. “Must be tough.”

“Indeed. I wish I, too, could feel covered in tar.”

“Your master didn’t give you magic perception, but did give you sarcasm?”

“He was a funny guy.”

The two of them laughed. Twirl stood up, spreading her wings for balance, and asked “How about that boost out, then?”

Annabeth didn’t move. Twirl jumped up and down on her head. “Hey! Paladin!”

Quickly removing her hands from her ears, Annabeth opened her eyes and looked around frantically. “W-what? Sorry! What is it?”

“Let’s get outta here. We’ve got a dark wizard to slay!”

Annabeth looked up out of the pit, sending Twirl toppling off her head, and then turned to look at Rockwell. She bit her finger guiltily. “I don’t want to just leave you here, but…?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rockwell said magnanimously. “Let’s get you out of here.”

He stepped over to the side of the pit. As he moved, dust fell from his body, and his joints made a noise like an angry pepper-grinder. Lowering himself carefully to one knee, he held out a hand for Annabeth to step onto, his single palm big enough to accommodate both of her feet. She wobbled as he lifted her, and once fully raised, her head and shoulders were clear of the pit’s edge. She lifted her glaive out of the pit and dropped it to the side of the tunnel, then hauled herself up.

She pulled herself clear of the pit and crawled away from the edge, taking a deep breath. Her armour and backpack had gotten no lighter since the earlier climb. She decided that once she was done with Lonehearth, she was going to head straight back to the plains. The mountains did not agree with her.

Twirl simply flew up out of the pit as Annabeth got to her feet. The paladin stepped back towards the edge of the pit, carefully, and peeked over at Rockwell.

“We’ll come back and get you out of here soon, alright?”

Rockwell nodded. “Take your time. I’ve got plenty.”

“Goodbye!” Twirl waved over Annabeth’s shoulder. Rockwell returned the gesture.

Annabeth turned, picked up her glaive from the cave floor, and walked out into the sunlight.

*

A thin layer of snow crunched under Annabeth’s feet as they rose through the upper slopes of the mountain. The fog had cleared while they were in the cave, and as they approached the summit, they could see far across the mountains, like a rolling sea of stone and trees. To the southeast, Twirl’s crater haven was a speck of colour amidst the hillside, and far past it, the sea was vivid blue in the sun. Below, it had been the merest sliver under the sky, but from this vantage point, it encompassed almost half the horizon. It reached from the southeast all the way round to the north, where the city of Everstride stood, distance transforming it into a matchbox model.

The wind whipped her skirt around her ankles, snatching away the clouds of her breath. She thanked the Goddess that her gauntlets were padded with cloth, because as she brushed a loose strand of hair out of her face, the metal was unbearably cold against her cheek. Twirl had taken Annabeth’s pocket cloth and wrapped herself in it, shivering. The sky was ice blue and cloudless. High above, the sun glared white, suffusing the mountaintop with its cold light. The shadows of the naked trees were almost invisible.

And across the snow fields, the black stone tower stood. This close, the sensation of dark magic was stronger than ever, a suffocating taste of rotting sugar that made her want to retch. She could feel cold slime running down her back, then vanishing, only to return between her fingers, or on the soles of her feet, or trickling down her top lip. Wait. That one was just her nose running because of the cold. She checked her pocket for her handkerchief.

“Don’t look at me,” Twirl stammered, drawing it tighter around her shoulders. Annabeth sniffled, but said nothing. Envy was a sin, after all.

They stopped at a snow-dusted henge for lunch, taking a seat on one of the overturned limestone obelisks. It’s always better to face evil on a full stomach. Annabeth munched happily on a turnip, to Twirl’s disgust, and chased mouthfuls down with the last of her water.

“Check this out,” said Twirl. She fluttered down to the ground and began to scoop up armfuls of snow, crunching them together and placing them next to Annabeth’s bottle. Once it was mostly filled, she disappeared into the underbrush below the jagged pathway, and returned with a collection of wild blueberries, which went into the bottle followed by the snow. She placed the cap back on and told Annabeth to shake it around a bit. Free, all-natural fruit slushy!

“What’s a slushy?”

Twirl balked. “Humans don’t even have _slushies?_”

“Maybe. Are they alcoholic?”

“And you think _you’re_ the civilised ones,” the pixie huffed.

Annabeth took a sip of it and licked her lips. It tasted… like blueberry juice and snow.

“Delicious,” she said with a smile, and put the bottle to her lips again. A lump of solid snow tumbled into the back of her throat, almost choking her. She coughed, swallowed, and gave a weak thumbs-up. Twirl smiled proudly.

As they ate, the pixie gestured to the henge around them. Stone circles like this lined the mountains, and had been constructed, according to her, by a society of druids that lived in the area a couple of hundred years ago. They had worshipped the primeval forest, and the pixies who lived there; they left offerings of fruit and nuts at these monuments to gain their favour. Twirl laughed. If they wanted the favour of the pixies, why not leave something that wasn’t literally strewn across the forest floor? And humans had no idea what good fruit was, anyway. Berries made them puke up their lungs.

The druids had lived here for a long time, before the tower was even built. They had been considerate neighbours, for the most part, even if their midnight chanting was annoying. And then, one summer, they simply vanished. The pixies didn’t notice at first; only once the final set of offerings started to rot. By then, even though they searched, the druids were nowhere to be found, not anywhere in the valley – and they weren’t exactly hard to find.

Twirl looked over the cliffs into the valley below, the rustle of the treetops blending into the wind. The monuments were all that was left of the druids, at least as far as the pixies knew. Maybe they moved on to somewhere else, maybe they simply lost interest. Maybe they all died. Who knew?

She sighed.

“Do you think the pixies should maybe have shown them a bit more attention? Maybe then they would have, you know...” she gestured at the valley. “Stuck around?”

Annabeth was silent for a moment, chewing her turnip.

She had been reminded of her childhood, living in the bell tower of her town church. The bishop, her adoptive father, had never been one for attention. He had been focused on his role as preacher, leading sermons, heading out to proselytise, leaving simple meals in the pantry for Annabeth to cook and eat herself. For her part, Annabeth was left to take care of the chapel; washing the clothes, taking care of the hymn books, cleaning and sweeping. Their paths had rarely crossed, and they rarely exchanged words beyond greetings and goodbyes.

When the time had come for her to move out to the monastery, their farewells were monosyllabic. She had stopped thinking about home almost as soon as the carriage rounded the first corner.

“I couldn’t really say,” she eventually replied.

Twirl slumped where she sat, wrapped in the handkerchief like a discarded burrito. “Guess it’s no use pining about the what-could-have-beens, anyway.”

Annabeth thought for a moment, her hand rising to her lunar amulet.

“Well,” she said, “That doesn’t mean it was all pointless. Just because they’re gone now doesn’t mean they may as well never have been.” She went to give Twirl’s shoulder a reassuring pat, but the size difference turned it into an awkward temporary hover-hand. “I mean, look at us now – if it weren’t for those druids, we’d be eating lunch on the floor.”

Twirl laughed. “I mean, you’re not wrong there.”

Annabeth nodded with a warm smile. “It’s all a part of the Goddess’s plan.”

“Oh, right. I forgot you were one of those,” Twirl sighed. Annabeth’s stomach turned at this dismissal, but she quelled such feelings quickly. The Goddess wouldn’t want her to be that way.

She stood sharply, swinging her backpack over her shoulders. “Ready to go?”

Twirl nodded, standing up with her handkerchief cloak wrapped as tightly around her as she could manage, draping oddly across her wings. Annabeth reached down and picked her up gently, lifting her up and placing her safely into a pocket on the side of her backpack. She took one last swig of vaguely sweet snow runoff, strapped her bottle to the pack, and set off.

Fragments of ancient paving led past the stone circle, rounded off by time and obscured by frost and earth. The path rose up as it followed the ridged summit of the mountain, each side dropping away to a steep and rocky drop as Annabeth walked. It was barely wide enough to walk on, and the slopes were decorated with scattered pavestone fragments and bricks. The path had clearly been much wider once.

She looked around. Here, atop the very peak of the mountain, the world rolled out around her in every direction, all beneath the boundless expanse of the sky. White, wispy clouds drifted just above the peaks, not just a backdrop at this proximity but their own archipelago of floating islands, each one big enough for a village, stretching off cloud by cloud until they merged with a continental cumulonimbus stretching dozens of miles over the eastern horizon. The sunlight shone through them, almost seeming to make them glow from within.

Annabeth was suddenly aware of just how small she was. She wobbled in the wind, and for a moment was afraid she might simply be picked up and blown away into the sky. She stopped, her skirt flapping around her feet and her hands gripping her glaive tightly. Her cheeks cold, she turned her face away from the wind – and there, hanging in the sky beyond the sea, was the moon.

She touched her lunar amulet, and the moment passed. She stepped forward resolutely, emboldened, and strode up the path until she reached the base of the tower.

It loomed high above them, around four stories tall – and had once been higher, but some forgotten devastation had removed the higher floors, leaving only this crumbling ruin. The slopes around it were littered with bricks and remnants of the tower’s lost upper floors, and the remaining parts of the tower were cracked and precarious. The ground floor, however, had been renovated, covering the cracks and shoring up the structure with roughly-chopped timber. Quite recently, even – there were still some spare planks and an axe leaning by the front entrance.

As they approached, the sensation of dark magic was almost unbearable. The bitter taste now reached into the back of Annabeth’s throat, and her stomach burnt, as if having just eaten something unbearably spicy. The phantom slime was between her fingers and toes, and the space just behind her eyes ached.

Twirl peeked from her pocket. “I like what they’ve done with the place,” she said brightly, then spat. “Apart from the whole aura of evil thing.”

One of the front doors was tall, made from tarnished black steel, with an ornate handle and imposing carvings of strange beasts and folkloric monsters. The other half of the door had been broken off its hinges at some point, and replaced with a pleasant, varnished wooden affair, with a simple brass knocker. She grasped the knocker and rapped it against the wood, firmly.

There was a moment of silence, and then the door clicked, and swung inwards slowly. Inside, peeking through the crack in the door, was a thin young man in a robe and pointy hat. His eyes were a crystalline red, with shakily-applied black eyeshadow, and his skin was chalk-white.

“Evangelists!” he hissed, revealing needle-like teeth, and slammed the door.

Twirl hoisted herself up out of the pocket and onto the top of the backpack, leaving the handkerchief half-dangling. She stretched her legs and wings, shivering in the cold, and then stood with her hands on her hips regarding the door.

“Well, that was rude as hell.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annabeth and Twirl meet the villain, and he's badly written

Annabeth hit the ground with her glaive and cried, “It was!” She paused. Then she added, “But that doesn’t make it okay for us to be too. As _heck_, please.”

Twirl rolled her eyes, and Annabeth knocked again. The sound faded into the valley, echoes calling back intermittently. The door remained obstinately closed. The black bricks loomed.

Jumping from Annabeth’s back, Twirl fluttered over to one of the glassless windows set in the ancient stone, and peeked inside. “Hello?”

“Go away!”

A book of dark secrets collided with the interior wall next to her, the pages fluttering and whispering malignant truths as it fell to the floor. She yelped and leapt back out into the cold air, landing on Annabeth’s shoulder.

“He’s violent! We gotta take him down!”

Annabeth grit her teeth, readied her glaive, and drew her foot back to kick the door in.

“Wait!” The vampire’s voice came through the door, somehow sheepish. “Was that a pixie?”

The visitors glanced at one another. “Yes?” Twirl replied, suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”

The door was silent. “I… always wanted to meet a pixie!” came the eventual reply, with rigid brightness. “Why don’t you come on in?”

“Well, the door’s closed for a start,” Twirl scoffed, then hissed to Annabeth, “Keep that staff ready.”

The door swung open, to reveal the vampire wizard. He smiled pleasantly at the two of them, and beckoned them inside. “So sorry about the, uh, misunderstanding. Used to get these door-to-door evangelists all the time – ha! You can imagine how annoying it was.”

Annabeth nodded slowly. “Good afternoon.”

Twirl rose into the air, away from the vampire. “Who are you, then?”

He smiled widely, his fangs glinting, and bowed, one arm under his chest and one held out to the side. “Dyotor van Heiryng, at your service.”

Twirl tilted her head. “Van Herring?”

Dyotor’s eyes narrowed for a split second, then he laughed and turned away, beckoning the two visitors inside. “Near enough! Now come on in, come in.”

Twirl went in through the door, quickly flitting upwards and landing atop the doorframe. The interior was pleasant and accommodating, even though the renovations weren’t quite finished. The front room was semi-circular, with a wall across the middle of the tower and an open archway leading to the other side of the circle, which appeared to be a kitchen area. The floor was clean plywood, recently installed, with a tasteful blood-red rug in the center of the room.

On one side, a raised dais featured a coffin with rather comfortable-looking cushions and sheets inside, next to which a small table held a clock, a book and a hairbrush. On the other side, a dark leather armchair (with stylish coffee table accoutrement) stood with its back to one of the windows, next to which leaned a rail and neatly-folded crimson curtains, awaiting installation. Dyotor stepped over and retrieved the book he had thrown, placing it atop a bookshelf standing next to the window while carefully avoiding the sunlight streaming in.

“Lovely place,” Twirl said reticently, and glided down to the head of the armchair, reassuringly bathed in sunlight. She turned to face the door. “You coming in, Annabeth?”

Annabeth had been removing her shoes before entering, in accordance with the scripture of hospitality. She nodded quickly as she clapped the metal soles together, knocking away the dirt, before placing them neatly by the doormat and stepping inside, her toes white from the cold. She looked around the room as she stepped in, her brow furrowing as she noticed the coffin.

“Can I get you a drink?” came Dyotor’s voice from through the archway. “Tea? Coffee? Wine?”

“Oh, I never drink wine,” Annabeth replied. “A cup of tea would be lovely, thank you.”

Twirl shot through the air to Annabeth’s ear, and hissed, “Don’t drink anything he gives you! It could be poisoned, or enchanted, or anything!”

Annabeth nodded as Dyotor came back around the corner, holding a bottle of clear white champagne and a wooden fold-out chair. With a smart flick of the elbow, he deployed the chair, and placed it facing the leather armchair. He shrugged apologetically as he took his decadent, cushioned seat, twisting the cork from the bottle. “The rest of the furniture hasn’t arrived yet – I’m dreadfully unprepared for visitors.”

Annabeth stayed standing. She gestured at the bottle. “I said, I don’t drink wine.”

“It’s champagne!” smiled Dyotor, his eyes glittering.

“Or any alcohol,” she went on sternly.

The vampire grinned, his eyes wide and unblinking as he made direct eye contact. “Oh come on,” he said, his voice like syrup, “You can get away with just a glass or two.”

Annabeth squinted at his odd expression. “Are – are you trying to hypnotise me?”

He was silent. Then he shook his head rapidly. “No! No, no, no, what gave you that impression? This champagne is for - ” he looked at Twirl, who was shorter than his champagne flutes, then back to Annabeth, who hadn’t wanted any. “It’s for me!” he said brightly. “Your tea will be ready as soon as the kettle boils. Let me just go check on it!”

He stood up quickly, taking the bottle with him, and walked through the archway to the kitchen. Annabeth and Twirl looked at one another. The paladin leant her glaive against the back of the wooden chair and sat down, adjusting her sword on her belt for comfort. Twirl flapped down to the coffee table between the chairs and sat on the edge, her legs crossed at the ankles.

“This is not what I expected,” she whispered, her wings flared defensively. “I was expecting some kind of evil genius warlock, not this idiot.”

Annabeth pointed at her tiny compatriot warningly. “Disrespect is never okay, Twirl. Even if his villainy… does leave something to be desired.” She glanced through to the kitchen as the sound of a stove being lit came through. “I’m sure he’s better at it when he’s had time to prepare.”

“That’s what I mean,” Twirl said suspiciously. “Is he really this dumb? Or does he just want us to _think_ he’s dumb?”

Annabeth was bemused. “Why would he want to do that?”

“God, you’re naive!”

Annabeth moved away in her seat, her face a picture of hurt. Twirl looked down. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You shouldn’t. Blasphemy is a sin.”

Twirl sighed deeply. From the kitchen, the sound of a kettle boiling finally came. Shortly afterwards, Dyotor emerged carrying a steaming cup of tea in a small porcelain cup, which he handed to Annabeth as he sat down. She sniffed it, then put it carefully on the coffee table.

“I’ll let it cool,” she said.

Dyotor’s eyes began to glitter. “It’s much better hot,” he said.

“Please stop that,” Annabeth said shortly.

“Oh come on,” Dyotor said, raising his hands in frustration. “I’m – I’m just trying to be hospitable here for a pair of nice visitors, and you’re being so standoffish.”

Twirl scoffed. “Maybe you shouldn’t have slammed the door in our faces and thrown a book at me.”

Dyotor scowled darkly. Twirl grinned. Annabeth glanced at her tea. “Did you forget to strain out the leaves?”

The others looked down at the mug, inside which a sprig of some plant was spinning on the surface. Dyotor reached out, but Twirl was faster, pulling the sodden thing from the drink and shaking the drops off. The twig was black and the petals on the end were a soft shade of lilac – or at least, it looked like they had been before they’d been stirred into the tea.

“This is Somnolent Lavender,” Twirl observed. “Doesn’t make you puke up your lungs, but it will knock you cold for ten, twelve hours. Interesting blend.”

Dyotor was silent.

“Why is this in my drink, Dyotor?” asked Annabeth politely.

“It’s… my own blend. I find it… relaxing,” he offered weakly.

“Sorry, but I don’t care for it,” Annabeth said, sliding her cup away from her on the table. “Sorry,” she repeated, smiling awkwardly.

“Anyway,” Twirl said, fluttering up into the air and facing Dyotor with her arms folded. “We came here hoping you could tell us something about all the dark magic.”

“Dark magic? I wouldn’t know anything about that,” the vampire said quickly, looking away. His black pointy hat shifted slightly on his head, and he adjusted it back to its original position. “So I guess you’ll want to be going.”

Annabeth and Twirl looked at him. He looked back.

After several seconds’ silence, he leant forwards in the armchair, taking off his hat and running a hand through his black hair. “Alright, fine,” he sighed. “I’m working on... a cure for vampirism. Obviously, that’s going to involve necromancy, because – well, obviously. So I came out here, as far away from civilisation as I could manage, to ensure, uh, I wouldn’t cave in to my bloodlust and attack someone before the cure was complete. And so that the dark magic aura wouldn’t inconvenience anyone! And I invited you in because all I need is some pixie dust and I can cure the plague of vampirism. Really, I’m the victim here, shouldn’t you be helping me?”

Annabeth and Twirl looked at one another, and then back to Dyotor.

“What a bunch of toss!” Twirl laughed. Annabeth winced, but nodded.

Dyotor looked back and forth between them, his eyes wide and sweat beading on his brow.

Then his hand shot out and grabbed a champagne glass, turning it upside down over Twirl and trapping her under it like a moth. Annabeth leapt to her feet with a cry, knocking the chair backwards and sending her glaive falling to the floor. She drew her sword quickly, raising it overhead, but Dyotor had pulled a wand from his pocket, and didn’t need to close the gap. With a loud crack and a flash of purple lightning, Annabeth hit the floor, her sword spinning away across the plywood.

Twirl swore from under the glass, pounding on it with her tiny green fists. She braced her shoulder against it and started quickly pushing it towards the edge of the table – it was only a glass, it wasn’t that heavy – but just as she had almost reached the edge, Dyotor placed a hand on the glass and held it in place.

“I tried, okay?!” he muttered, shaking the smoke from the tip of his wand and returning it to his pocket. “I tried being nice! This is all your fault. You could have just gone along with the traps.”

Twirl flipped him a rude gesture. He returned it, then reached across to the bookshelf, picking up the thick leather book of darkness and putting it on top of the glass to hold it down. Twirl punched the side of the glass, then hissed and shook her aching knuckles. Too heavy.

The vampire stepped over to Annabeth’s unconscious body and hoisted her up by the arms.

“What are you going to do with her?” Twirl asked, her eyes narrow.

“Nothing special,” Dyotor spat back. “You should be more worried about yourself.”

*

Annabeth woke up slowly. Her head ached. Her eyes were heavy, and the stone under her back hurt, as if every part of the surface were somehow jabbing into her at once. She sat up, shakily and with some effort, and raised a hand to her forehead. The movement was scored by a jangle of metal.

She cracked an eyelid. Her wrist was bound by a rusted iron shackle, from which trailed a decrepit old chain, set into one of the bricks in the nearby wall. She raised her arm – the chain was only about five feet long. Turning her arm over, she found the lock: a brutalist cuboid of metal with a rectangular slot for the key, an old dwarven-made model, by the looks of it. Easy to pick, apparently, but only thieves and vagabonds learnt how to pick locks.

She rubbed her face again. It stung where the spell had crackled across her skin, leaving a fractal spiderweb of pink burns. Her armour hadn’t stood up to the magic at all.

At that thought, she realised her hands were bare. In fact, all her armour was gone, leaving her in just her modest beige dress. She glanced around urgently, raising a hand to her neck – but her lunar amulet was gone also. Her breath caught. She was alone. She was powerless. And her hair was coming loose from its braid, too.

She bit her lip and looked around, finally taking in her surroundings. She was shackled to the wall of a circular dungeon, built of the same black bricks as the tower, but with moss and mushrooms growing in the corners, away from the scouring winds. Around the perimeter of the room, eight other shackles were set into the brickwork, but she seemed to be the only prisoner. On the far side of the room, the ceiling held a hatch, from which a rickety set of narrow metal stairs, rusted brown, ran down the wall. Next to it, a dying lantern cast flickers of orange across the room, which mingled with the blue phosphorescence of the mushrooms as they faded into darkness.

In the center of the room, a large plywood altar stood. Its sides were carved with an intricate series of runes, and on top, as Annabeth rose to her feet, she could see a series of objects. She swallowed as she saw a skull peeking out at her from behind an inkwell. Her armour was there, too. There was a book, and on top of it, a glass wine bottle. Inside, iridescent purple wings were crumpled against the glass, behind which a splash of green skin and autumnal leaf-dress was visible.

Annabeth hurried forward, to the extent that the chain allowed. “Twirl!”

Twirl jerked, and shuffled around. She was leaning against the glass wall, without enough room to sit. “Annabeth! Are you okay?”

Annabeth tugged at the chain, a couple of rust flakes scraping loose where the links rubbed together. She tugged at the neck of her dress again, the chain of her amulet distressingly absent. “Is my amulet over there?”

“What?”

“My moon amulet! Is it over there?”

Twirl craned her neck over the altar. “What does it look like?”

“An amulet with the moon on it!” Annabeth spat back, snapping the chain taut as she raised her hands. “It’s not diff – it’s not - ” she stopped, and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

“No worries,” Twirl said carefully, shooting Annabeth a quick glance over her shoulder. “I don’t see it.”

Annabeth slumped against the wall, biting her knuckle and tugging at her neckline.

“The rest of your armour’s here,” Twirl offered as reassurance. No reply.

After a moment, Annabeth glanced back up at Twirl, stuck in the bottle. The neck tapered off to a narrow point.

“How did you end up in there?”

Twirl scowled. “Wizard spell. He’s better at magic than he is at lying, at least.”

Annabeth nodded. The back of her neck felt exposed without the chain.

“Why didn’t you just go for him?” Twirl grumbled, drumming her fingertips against the bottle’s inner wall. “We could have been done with all this and home for dinner by now.”

Annabeth reared up defensively. “He hadn’t done anything! I can’t just start attacking someone for no reason!”

“He drugged your tea!”

“He said it was his own blend! He might have been telling the truth.”

Twirl fell against the glass and put a hand to her forehead in mock woe. “Goddamn idiot paladins,” she groaned. “I should have just let you go by and waited for someone smart.”

“Shut up,” snapped Annabeth.

The sound faded quickly into silence. The pixie’s eyes were wide with surprise. Annabeth turned away. The jagged stone bricks loomed around her, judging. A loose strand of hair fell across her face. She opened her mouth to whisper a prayer of contrition, but the words caught in her throat.

Then, the hatch at the top of the rusty metal stairs opened, washing the dungeon with yellow light.

“Are you fighting down there? Break it up!”

Dyotor came down the rickety stairs, stumbling on the last one as his robe got caught beneath his feet. He strode to the altar with his nose in the air, plucking the bottle from it, tossing it from hand to hand as he regarded Annabeth. Twirl yelped on each impact.

“Enjoy your nap?”

Annabeth shook her head. Dyotor laughed haughtily. “Isn’t that a shame? Well, you were the ones who came along and invaded my home.”

“You invited us – ow – in!” Twirl cried. “You wanted to harvest me for pixie dust!”

Dyotor set the bottle back onto the altar roughly, leaving it rattling in a circle on its base. “Okay, so I wanted to harvest you for pixie dust, you didn’t need to be so _weird _about it.” He raised his hands in a mock flapping gesture and put on a warbling falsetto. “_Ooh, look at me! I’m too pure and delicate of a forest creature to donate __a little__ pixie dust to my friendly neighborhood wizard!_”

“You think the process involves cutting off and dessicating my wings!”

“Well if it doesn’t, why don’t you correct me?!”

Annabeth watched the back-and-forth over her shoulder. The shackle was heavy around her wrist, and the raised voices gained an unpleasant, rolling echo in the circular dungeon, that pressed in on her eardrums and quickened her heart. Her amulet was missing.

Twirl glared at the vampire as he stood over the altar, his hands flat on the surface on either side of the bottle. “Just hand it over!” he growled. “A thimbleful! Do you even know how much it costs to get pixie dust from the apothecaries?!”

“Well, I didn’t,” laughed Twirl, “But now that you’ve mentioned it, I know to negotiate for a better price! Gimme gems or I take the dust to another buyer; that’s just basic economics.”

“How do you know what economics are?! You live in a bush!”

“Mushroom, actually, and that’s a pretty elitist thing to say.”

Dyotor threw his hands up. “Oh, great. Now I’m the bad guy.”

Twirl clutched at the air, laughing breathlessly. “_You’re a necromancer!_” She waved her hands at the pile of bones on the altar next to the book and the bottle. “You have a skeleton _right here!_”

He shrugged. “Not a _whole _skeleton.”

Annabeth rubbed her forehead as the argument swirled. She turned to face the vampire and raised her hand politely, causing the chain to rattle a little. After a moment, Twirl noticed her and got Dyotor’s attention. He turned to face the paladin, top lip raised in disgust. He folded his arms.

“And now the village idiot wants to say something?”

Annabeth’s nails dug into her palms. She took a breath. “That was rude.”

Dyotor laughed. “It’s not my fault you had to be shipped off to a monastery because you couldn’t handle a real job.” Annabeth’s gaze dropped to the floor.

Twirl spoke up with a barbed tongue. “And you’re doing any better, living in a crummy refurbished tower because nobody wants you near them?”

Spinning to face the altar, Dyotor jabbed a finger towards the pixie. “I am doing important sorcerous work on my own terms! I don’t have to kowtow to some shabby old religion’s outdated code of conduct. I don’t wash windows!”

“I like washing windows,” Annabeth mumbled. Windows were much more polite.

“Exactly!” crowed the wizard. “And that’s why I’m a genius, independent wizard, and you’re just a useless trainee paladin. Not that the qualified ones are any different! You know they all forge their commendations, right?”

“They would never!” yelled Twirl, her wings crushed flat against the glass of the bottle as they attempted to flare out in anger. “And what makes you such a genius? Is it ploys like brewing someone Somnolent Lavender tea and forgetting to strain out the leaves? Stuff like that?”

“Oh, let me show you,” Dyotor growled.

He snatched the bottle from the table, placing it on one of the steps to the trapdoor, around chest height. Picking up the book, he brandished the cover at the pixie, and then around to Annabeth. The title read _Resurrecting A Death Lord The Easy Way_. The book was dog-eared, and contrary to convention, paperback.

“This is my plan!” he roared. “Step one: Resurrect a demon king. Step two: Lay waste to Everstride. Step three: G- Then- Uh… Well, you get the point!”

Twirl cocked her head in confusion. “Why do you want to lay waste to Everstride?”

“They didn’t respect my immense necromantic prowess! The Whitecliff College snubbed me. They snubbed me, the best wizard to ever grace their halls, and I’m going to make them pay! And thanks to _your_ paladin armour and _your_ pixie dust, my thrall will be as strong as armies!”

The echoes faded into the moss. Twirl struggled to stifle a snickering fit. “You want revenge because you failed your degree?”

Dyotor’s eyes widened, then he turned away and laughed haughtily. “That would be one way to phrase it, if you wanted – if you were _stupid._”

A half-hearted rattle came from the other side of the room. Annabeth had her hand raised again. Dyotor drew himself up as he turned to face her, stepping around the altar to stand nose-to-nose with the paladin. This only served to highlight how much taller than him she was, but he couldn’t back out now or he’d look like an idiot. It did not occur to him that this was no significant change.

“What is it?” he snarled. “You’ll be wanting to put a stop to my schemes, then?”

“I had a question,” Annabeth said apologetically. “You never let me say it.”

Dyotor blinked. “Oh. Go on, then.”

“Do you know where my lunar amulet is, please?”

“The amulet?” The vampire put a hand to his chin in mock thought. “I don’t remember. When I was looting your equipment for my demon, I must have thrown out that useless little bauble.”

She punched him in the face. He hit the ground heavily, his limbs flailing ungainly as he scrambled away. She stepped after him as he pulled himself to the altar, but came to a halt as the chain reached its limit and jerked her arm back. He looked over his shoulder at her, nursing his jaw with both hands.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” he spat. He rose to his feet, leaning heavily against the altar, his pale white face now adorned with a fist-shaped blotch of pink. Annabeth’s breath was shallow and rapid.

Twirl cried out from inside the bottle. “Oh my god! Were you wearing makeup this whole time?!”

“No!” Dyotor snapped, glancing away. “I mean – no!”

Annabeth glanced down at her sore knuckles. They were smeared with white.

“You totally are!” Twirl crowed. “That’s not a bruise, that’s a smear!”

Annabeth’s throat hurt. She had made it less than half an hour without divine guidance, and she had already attacked someone. At this rate, she’d be trespassing and stealing in just a couple days – and then she’d fall into bad company, and then she’d end up renouncing the Lunar Church, and then she’d start drinking and flirting, and from there it would inevitably be babies for dinner by the next full moon. Her wrist ached in the shackle’s grip.

Dyotor stalked across the room and snatched the bottle up, bringing it over to the central altar.

“I’ve had enough of your backchat,” he snarled. “You’re in a bottle! You don’t _get _to backchat.”

Twirl folded her arms, falling against the side of the bottle as he tilted it to look down at her. Her wings crumpled further against the glass. “I’m sorry, I hadn’t noticed.”

He slammed the bottle onto the altar with a noise like a cheap bell. Twirl tumbled around inside it and settled at the base once more, sprawled mostly upside-down. She grumbled as she shifted her weight, then yelped in fright as she noticed Dyotor withdrawing a dagger from the depths of his robes. “One way or another,” he snarled, “I’m going to get some pixie dust out of this bottle.”

Annabeth’s head snapped up as she noticed the glint of metal. All at once, the conflicting voices in the back of her mind – the worries about sin, the stress of confinement, the contempt for this black magician, the guilt of feeling contempt, they all rose up, all at once, into a bewildering clamour. And then something snapped.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It all comes to a head. "It" being Annabeth's fist and the head being the vampire's

The knife glowed blue as it approached the bottle, and passed through the glass as if it was air. Twirl flattened her back against the other side of the bottle as the point came through with a twinkle of cyan sparks.

“Not got anything to say now, have you?” cackled Dyotor as, over his shoulder, Annabeth began to gather her shackles up into her hands. He withdrew the knife and turned the bottle around in his hands, grinning as Twirl span to keep her wings away from him. “Go on, give us one of your one-liners – you’ve been so ready with them all evening.”

Annabeth gripped the chain tightly in her shackled hand, wrapping it once or twice around her wrist. She stood with one foot in front of the other, leant forward, and drew the chain forward to its limit, testing it once or twice.

Twirl looked up at the wizard with a gulp. Sweat would have been beading on her forehead, if it weren’t for the fact she was small enough that radiating her internal heat was too easy to require that kind of biological function – instead, her wings fluttered reflexively. Nevertheless, she spat back, “Go to hell, Herring.”

“It’s _Heiryng!_” The knife hit the altar with a thunk – obviously, it lacked the same magical privileges as the bottle – and left a deep scar across one of the runic circles.

Annabeth braced her free hand against the wall.

Dyotor knocked the bottle onto its side, holding it in place with his free hand and yanking the dagger from the wood. “It’s Heiryng! _Say Heiryng._”

Twirl’s hands shook, her lip upturned with the spite of hopelessness. “Didn’t catch that. One more time?”

The knife levelled above the bottle, the point glowing blue as it hovered above the glass.

“_Heiryng. _Say it or die!”

Twirl sucked air in through her teeth. “Nah.” The knife raised.

Annabeth ripped the shackle out of the wall in a cloud of dust, scattering fragments of brick and broken chain-links across the floor. She flew forwards like a rocket, the snapped chain flapping from her wrist, and hit Dyotor with the force of a moonshot. She tackled him onto and over the altar, the two of them sending the bones, books and bottle tumbling across the dungeon floor – and following them down with a crash.

Annabeth rose quickly. She drove her knee into the vampire’s stomach and gripped his knife hand in both of hers, forcing it to the floor. He snarled and punched her in the ear with his other hand, knocking her off and onto the floor beside. She scrambled away as he jabbed the knife at her, crying out as he slashed it across her shin, scattering blood across the stone. She swallowed the pain as she left his reach, rolled over, and leapt to her feet.

She span back round as Dyotor raised himself, and leapt at him before he was steady. She grabbed him by the knife arm again with one hand, and with the other, she punched him in the stomach, _thunk, thunk__, _and then once more in the face, _smack. _He fell from the hits, dangling by the arm from her hand, his grip failing and letting the knife fall to the ground. She hoisted him up, taking him under the arm and the knee, and threw him over her shoulder with a yell. He hit the floor like a sack of bricks.

She fell against the altar, her breath heaving, clamping her hand over her bleeding leg.

“Oh my god, are you alright?”

Twirl spoke from the bottle, discarded by the metal steps. “That was insane!”

Annabeth didn’t respond. She rose slowly, glancing down at her red-smeared hand. She wiped it down on her dress. It was a sin to wear dirty clothes, but after lying on the bricks unconscious for hours, that ship had sailed. Her ear still stung.

She limped over to Dyotor, who lay groaning in the midst of the debris from the altar-top. She stood, blood running between her toes, and regarded him. Then, all of a sudden, she stuck out her hand. “Here.”

Dyotor raised his head shakily. Then he raised his hand to hers, and she pulled him to his feet. His makeup was badly smeared now, and a purple bruise was beginning to form under his eye. He squinted at her resentfully as he put a hand to his stomach.

Then it flashed into his pocket. Annabeth lunged forward as the wand came out, barely knocking it to one side as it went off. There was a loud bang, like a firework going off in his hand, and that magenta lightning flashed forth from the wand. Burning its silhouette into their eyes in the split second it was there, the spell hit the ceiling and exploded into gouts of arcane fire, setting the rafters alight and filling the room with a rain of purple sparks, mingling with the blue of the mushrooms.

She wrestled the wand from Dyotor’s hands, gritting her teeth as the embers landed on her skin and evaporated in stinging little flashes. She grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hurled him to the floor with a thud, stepping back and holding the wand up tightly. He cried out, carried into the wall by momentum, his hat falling crumpled to the floor.

A terrifying rage began to rise in Annabeth’s chest as she watched the magician scramble to his feet, crushing her lungs and choking her, curdling her stomach and poisoning her heart. He had stolen her amulet, he had imprisoned and threatened a helpless pixie, he was coating the mountain in dark magic with no regard for safety, and he had attempted to take advantage of her mercy.

Most people have a conscience like the stereotype – an angel and a devil on each shoulder, whispering temptation from the left and temperance from the right. Annabeth, meanwhile, couldn’t be said to have a devil. The angel, yes, she was there all the time; directing her to do her chores, to speak politely, and to show trust and respect to others; but no devil. That didn’t mean her other shoulder was unoccupied, though. The other shoulder was home to the inquisitor.

Usually, the inquisitor was quiet. She wasn’t the type to speak up without reason. But oh, Dyotor did _insist_ on piling up the reasons, and now the inquisitor was calling for whips and chains.

She looked down at the wand in her hand. It was carved with runes and spirals, the grip bound in aged leather. A tiny sapphire was set in a knothole in the wood, impeccably cut and glittering in the light of the fire. The angel knew it was a work of art, and probably cost Dyotor a fair sum of gold to acquire. The inquisitor snapped it over her knee.

“What the hell?!” Dyotor cried as she threw the sparking pieces aside, against the wall. He stepped forward, continuing, “Don’t you know that -”

Annabeth cut off his sentence along with his breath. Driving him back against the iron stairs, his throat turning red around her fingers, she slammed him into them with a clatter. They rattled in their supports, rust flaking down to the floor, as she threw him into them again, and again. The slender railing holding the steps in place, lacking proper support, began to bend out of shape on the third hit. Neither of them noticed.

Dyotor, turning pale, managed to bring his foot up and kick Annabeth in the stomach, knocking her away. As her grip slipped, he fell to one knee, and then slid down to all fours, heaving for breath. Annabeth stumbled backwards, her own breath knocked out by the kick, and then strode forward once more, grabbing him by the collar and readying to pull him upright.

He brought up the pixie bottle, grabbed from beneath the steps, and swung it up and around into the side of Annabeth’s head. For an instant, it became a shower of glittering fragments, refracting the purple light from the flames above; amidst the display Twirl burst free on her wings, shooting across the room like a bolt of green and red. Annabeth hit the floor, cradling her bleeding temple.

Twirl flew up to the ceiling, then dropped at the heat. The rafters were almost burnt through, and beginning to groan under the weight of the tower above. Dyotor turned and began to hobble his way up the iron steps, one limb at a time, grunting in pain. Annabeth lay still, a trickle of blood coming from the wound on her shin.

The pixie raised her hands to the fire, and began to speak in a forgotten tongue. As the words left her mouth, they seemed to change the very air itself, filling it with the scent of petals, grass, and the morning after rainfall. It was the language of nature - a language as old as the elements themselves, by which the forces of nature talk amongst themselves out of the sight of mundane folk. There is no way of accurately translating it to the modern-day languages of men, but, as close as can be reckoned, this is what she said.

_Fire, _ she beseeched.  _Hey, fire. Stop that._

The fire seemed to still, and its eating through the rafters slowed. Dyotor stopped halfway up the steps, his mouth agape. Annabeth struggled to her elbows.

She shook her head, sternly. _I mean it, fire. Stop it._

The fire seemed to recede for a moment, and then sprung back forth more intensely than before.

_Oi! No! Do what you’re told, you little shit!_

The fire abated once more, meekly, until it was nothing more than embers.

_Aaaaall the way, _ she said firmly. The embers winked out. Twirl nodded, satisfied, and then relented. She called after the flames,  _There’s a heap of nice, dry logs over to the south. _ One ember returned, sparkled gratefully, and then vanished again.

Twirl dropped out of the air to Annabeth’s side, looking over her wounds. Several nasty-looking but shallow cuts on the side of her head from the bottle, one deeper shin wound from the knife – many, many rapidly forming bruises. Dyotor managed to haul himself up the hatch, rolling out of view and panting heavily.

“Don’t think you’re getting out of this that easily!” Twirl yelled after him, then turned back to Annabeth. “Are you okay? Can you stand?”

The paladin was quiet for a moment, then sharply grabbed the bent railing of the stairs and pulled herself upright. Waving side to side for a moment, she cleared her head and clenched her fists.

“Absolutely,” she snarled.

She hauled herself up the staircase, hand over hand. Even at the best of times, this was one of those contraptions that blended the line between staircase and ladder, and taking it with a bloodied leg and a head still ringing from the bottle hit was slow going. She rose from the hatch with a groan of pain, breathing heavily as she peered around.

The hatch opened out to Dyotor’s clean, efficient kitchen, presumably where he’d fetched the wine from before her impromptu nap. There was a varnished countertop running along the curved stone wall, with a washbasin full of leftover plates and cutlery. At the far end of the room, by the door to the front hall, Dyotor was heaving for breath, collapsed over a table by which stood Annabeth’s backpack and weapons. The orange light of sunset streamed through the narrow windows.

Twirl fluttered up to the kitchen quietly, and beckoned the paladin to follow. Annabeth drew herself to her feet and fell against the countertop, her injured leg unable to support her. Dyotor looked round at the clatter, snarled in frustration, and leant over to pick up Annabeth’s longsword. Drawing it stiffly and without finesse, he rose to his feet, testing the weight of the weapon in his hand. He stepped forward.

Annabeth grabbed a knife from the basin and hurled it end over end, striking Dyotor across the shoulder and skittering under the table. He yelled, his robe torn and his shoulder nicked, and took one hand off the hilt to grasp at the cut. Her opening made, Annabeth lunged for him, tackling him to the floor by the waist.

Dyotor had not yet suffered an open wound in the course of their fight, or possibly ever, and the shock had him reeling. He yelled in pain, and Annabeth quickly knocked the sword from his grip to clatter across the tile floor. She reached over to grab it, but Dyotor, snarling, lunged for her arm and clamped his jaw around it, biting down like a hyena.

Annabeth yelled out as the twin needles of his fangs pierced her skin, falling onto her back and trying to pull her wrist free. Her other hand snapped up and grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head back and his teeth loose, and punched him in the mouth with a scream of rage. There was a crack, Dyotor’s feral snarling gave way to a cry and a whimper, and something small, white and red went scattering across the floor.

They fell away from each other once more, Annabeth nursing the row of toothmarks on her wrist punctuated by two small punctures, Dyotor whining and covering his mouth with both hands. Twirl shrieked at the bite. Dyotor scrambled away, to his feet, and into the next room.

Twirl flew down from the ceiling and inspected Annabeth’s wrist urgently. “Are you okay? Do you feel any bloodlust?”

The rage in Annabeth’s chest was almost enough to suffocate her, but that was from before the bite. On balance, she decided to shake her head.

“Maybe he missed the vein,” Twirl mused. “Let me see – ack!” Annabeth brushed the pixie aside as she struggled to her feet, following the vampire into the front hall of the tower.

As she went through the arch between the rooms, Dyotor yelled. She threw herself forward, behind the armchair, as the blade of her glaive hit the floor where she’d been standing, throwing up dust and splinters. Dyotor heaved for breath and hauled the metal pole back up into his arms, raising it shakily for another swing. Annabeth growled and hauled herself upright by the chair. She dodged backwards against the bookshelf as he swung in a wild horizontal arc, glancing off the top of the armchair and sending it tumbling across the coffee table, breaking it with a crunch.

“You’re paying for that!” he roared, and swung the glaive back once more. Ready this time, she deftly snapped out her hand and caught the polearm by the crossguard, falling to one knee from the force, but sending the vampire stumbling at the same time. Pulling herself forward by the glaive, she gripped the other side of the crossguard, and threw herself backwards while twisting the weapon. Dyotor’s grip broke with little fight, and he fell backwards, against the coffin bed.

Annabeth stood, spinning the glaive deftly into a combat stance. Dyotor’s eyes widened, just for a moment, before she swung. He went flying across the room from the force, landing heavily and rolling to a stop in front of the door.

There was a moment of silence, and Annabeth raised the polearm up onto its end, leaning on it and panting for breath. Her heart, so squeezed by hate, finally began to feel some release, as she looked down at this crumpled heap of robes, a damp red stain growing around where her blow landed. Immediately, the relief was overrun by guilt. Wrath was a sin, after all.

Dyotor shifted and groaned, and her heart instantly hardened once more. She slammed the pointed base of the glaive into the heap of robes with a snarl, provoking a plaintive yelp of pain. Then she threw it to the floor with a clatter and hauled Dyotor to his feet. His face was pale, and not due to the make-up any more. He opened his mouth to say something. Before it could come out, Annabeth punched him in the stomach, wrenched his arm around, and threw him through the flimsy plywood door into the sunlight.

*

Splinters flew across the snow as the door buckled. The lock burst from the wood and the vampire fell through, hitting the ground hard, rolling through the dusting of snow on the mountaintop and sliding over the edge of the cliff, just barely managing to scrabble for purchase. He hung above the treetops, fight spent. In his torn wizard’s robes, he looked like a tattered old sock hanging dejectedly from a clotheshorse.

Annabeth limped through the ruined door, shoving a plank aside as she went. Her braid had come almost totally undone, shimmering a beautiful and terrible shade of gold in the sunset light, hanging down around her waist. She stepped forwards, casting a long shadow into the valley behind her. The snow was painfully cold between her toes.

She looked down at the wizard, digging his fingers into the frozen dirt. He looked up at her, her gait all lopsided and her leg turning dark red as the blood began to clot.

They stood for a moment, lit in a stark chiaroscuro by the horizontal sunlight. Annabeth blinked.

“You’re supposed to disintegrate in sunlight.”

Dyotor scoffed weakly, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the cliff. “Shows what _you _know about vampires. Sunlight is, uh, it’s only an issue for the really weak -” he slipped a few inches as his bleeding shoulder spasmed, and made an odd whining noise. “The,” he continued in a clenched-teeth falsetto, “The really – ow – weak ones.”

“I hit you with the glaive once,” Annabeth said.

“But it was _r__eally hard!_”

She sighed, stepped to the cliff’s edge, and crouched down. Dyotor cringed away as she approached, her hair flapping in the freezing mountain wind. “So,” she sighed, “You were lying even about being a vampire?”

Dyotor’s eyes were wide. “What? No! I’m -”

“Then how is it that I knocked out a fang, but there’s no gap in your teeth?”

Dyotor’s face fell. “Uh-”

Annabeth grabbed him by the arms and hauled him up from the cliff’s edge, throwing him across the doorstep with a cry of fury. She stood, casting a dark shadow across the wizard, and snarled, “You liar! A thief, a kidnapper, a conspirator, and a damned _liar!_” She strode past him and into the tower, adding, “There’s only one thing I can do with you now.”

He gasped and lurched away, crawling a few steps from the door, but she returned quickly, carrying her knife. She grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back against the wall, dropping to one knee next to him and holding him firmly in place. He struggled against her grip, but she slapped him in the face and hissed, “Stay still.”

She raised the knife, and cut away the bloodstained robes and shirt around his wounded shoulder. He watched in confused silence as she worked, flinching as she pulled the fabric strands away and made sure the cut was clean. By the time his shoulder was fully exposed to the air, the sun had sunk below the westward ridgeline, and the sky was fading into violet. He gasped with each chilling eddy of wind that passed his wound.

Annabeth put down the knife, and raised her hands to his shoulder. Holding them just above the wound, she began to whisper under her breath. It was an incantation, of sorts; written a thousand years ago in Elvish and memorised over months of training at the monastery. As she spoke, her palms began to glow with a soft, white light, like the light of the moon. It fell across his wounds, and they began to knit back together, healing supernaturally quickly and cleanly. The glancing cut from the kitchen knife disappeared into nothing, and the glaive wound left only a small white scar, which would itself fade entirely in just a couple of days.

As the paladin lowered her hands, Twirl poked her head tentatively out from the slit window. She glanced at Annabeth, and then down at Dyotor. “Everything sorted?”

“Everything sorted,” Annabeth said, rubbing her head. The bottle had left a large, purple bruise across her temple in addition to the cuts.

Twirl’s face broke into a sunny grin, and she fluttered out through the window, carrying Annabeth’s golden amulet in her arms. “Found it!”

“Oh goodness, thank you!” Annabeth cried, taking the necklace quickly and checking it for damage, before hanging it back in its place around her neck. As the chain settled against her skin, she felt a wave of reassurance wash over her like an embrace. She looked up into the sky, and the moon peeked back at her from behind a cloud.

Dyotor stretched his arm out, gawping at the healed flesh. “That’s incredib-”

Annabeth slapped him again. “Manners!”

“Ow! Th-thank you, thank you!”

“That’s better,” she scowled, and pulled him to his feet. “And _I _have to make do with bandages.”

“Thank you,” Dyotor repeated guiltily.

After clearing out the evil altar and magical components, they locked the wannabe vampire in the dungeon for the night. While he languished, Annabeth cleansed the tower of its various black-magic desecrations. This might sound like a complex operation, and it usually is; but with a magician of Van Heiryng’s incompetence, it’s as easy as mopping the floor with soap and blessed water. The mountain air would be clear of taint within just a couple of days. A job well done.

Her quest complete, Annabeth retrieved her first aid kit and began to tend to her wounds. While she did so, Twirl wrote her letter of commendation, using a rose thorn dipped in ink as a pen. Annabeth felt a surge of pride as the pixie handed it over, and then quickly crushed it. Pride was a sin, after all, and all she was really doing was her duty.

Twirl headed out and gathered snow and fruit for sorbet. Annabeth prepared a bowl of turnip stew in Dyotor’s kitchen using the supplies from her bag – she had, finally, earnt a full meal. They ate, and chatted about their adventure and their plans for the future until the sky glittered with stars. She pulled the sheets from Dyotor’s weird coffin bed and wrapped herself up tight in his armchair for the night, sleeping deeply and happily until dawn.

*

Lonehearth stood in the valley like a gem of comfort, built around a red-brick watermill on a narrow but rapid river. It was a small village, but its people were relaxed and vibrant, mostly working the small golden wheat fields they could fit into the land beside them, making bread from the grain, and relaxing in the hot, breezy valley air. Once the rich folk got word of it, the town would surely be gentrified beyond recognition, but for now, it was simple, calm, and honest.

The only exception to the rule was Main Street. Technically, it wasn’t a misnomer, but it _felt_ dishonest when you considered alternative names, like Only Street. Annabeth reflected on this absent-mindedly as she trudged into town, muddy and bandaged, leading a despondent Dyotor by the wrists with a chain. She approached the town hall, where on the mahogany porch, a fat dwarvish man lay on a deckchair with a book lying page-down on his face.

She coughed politely. “Sir?”

“Eh?” The dwarf startled awake, and pulled away the book, sitting up. He looked Annabeth and Dyotor up and down with shock. “What the hell happened to you?”

“_Heck_, sir, please,” Annabeth said reproachfully. “Are you the mayor?”

He nodded. “That I am.”

“Have you any room for a liar, thief, kidnapper, conspirator, and dark sorcerer in your cells?”

The mayor looked at Dyotor, who gave a resigned shrug and said nothing. “I suppose I can accommodate,” he said slowly. “But where are the other four?”

“He’s all five, sir,” Annabeth explained. “He’s the reason the mountain with the old wizard’s tower has been enwreathed in a foul and malicious aura for the past few months.”

The dwarf peered up at the tower, a speck against the cliffside from this distance, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Oh, is _that _what that was? I thought it was a bit weird over there.”

They led Dyotor to the local jailhouse, where Annabeth recounted the story and signed the paperwork to turn him over. Within the week, he would be escorted back to Everstride, where he would be tried and thoroughly laughed at by a jury of his peers from the magical university, to whom he had made his plans thoroughly known on his way out, with bluster and threats. It was about the best ending he could have hoped for, to be honest – actually succeeding in summoning a demon would have turned out _much worse._

Annabeth and the mayor stepped out of the jailhouse into the sunlight and shook hands. “A job well done,” said the dwarf.

“Thank you very much,” Annabeth said. “Now, do you need anything doing?”

“What do you mean?”

Annabeth shrugged. “Washing windows, gathering crops… Working the mill. I’m here to help.”

The mayor thought it over, then nodded and gestured up the road. “We need some fences fixing on the north side of town. Will you be wanting payment?”

“Well, I’d like to borrow a shovel and pickaxe, if you have them,” Annabeth said, clasping her hands together. The mayor furrowed his brow. “Sure. But why would you want that?”

“There’s a trapped golem in the mountains that I need to go back and rescue,” she explained. “I need to dig a way out for him.”

The dwarven mayor nodded. “You needn’t fix the fences for that, lass.”

“But I will,” Annabeth said, setting off along the road. “We agreed. It’ll be done by sundown.”

The mayor watched her go, and chuckled. “Do-gooders.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was the first writing exercise longer than 1-2 pages that i've done in basically years. i had good fun writing it!  
i think dyotor's character is pretty undeveloped and quite bad, and the denouement might be slightly rushed. but i was writing mostly off the top of my head, planless, and i can't be bothered to edit anything. we'll see how future projects turn out. on the bright side, the friendly tension between annabeth and twirl never failed to be fun to write. i hope it was as fun to read for you!  
\- alice


End file.
